www.bestdoctors.com About Lewis Levy, M.D. Dr. Lewis Levy provides medical leadership to the clinical operations team to deliver the highest quality clinical information on diagnosis and treatment to members and their treating physicians. He has over 20 years of clinical experience as an internist at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Boston. Dr. Levy also has an extensive teaching career through his role as a preceptor in the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and also as an instructor at Harvard Medical School. He continues to practice primary care internal medicine, and has participated in pioneer ACO, HMO and FFS arrangements. Dr. Levy earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed his Residency in Internal Medicine at the Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. About Best Doctors Best Doctors connects physician communities with other clinical experts, ranked in the top five percent of doctors by impartial peer review, to help people get the right diagnosis and right treatment. The organization creates personalized care experiences by combining actionable data insights and medical excellence. Founded in 1989 by Harvard Medical School physicians, the global health solutions company, which has grown to over 30 million members worldwide, uses state-of-the-art technology capabilities to deliver improved health outcomes while reducing costs. Best Doctors seamlessly integrates its trusted health services with Fortune 1000 employers, insurers and other groups in every major region of the world. Gallup has certified Best Doctors as using the highest industry standards survey methodology and processes in polling physicians to discover the doctors they would choose for their own care.  For further information, visit Best Doctors at www.bestdoctors.com. Medical Travel Today (MTT): Give our readers some background on Best Doctors and how the company qualifies providers. Lewis Levy (LL): Best Doctors is a global health company that brings together the brightest minds in medicine to help people get the right diagnosis and treatment plan. Best Doctors helps people overcome the terrible problems associated with medical uncertainty by providing access to the top five percent of physicians in over 450 specialty areas. Over 30 million members around the world have access to the service through their employer or health plan. Best Doctors has been peer polling for more than 25 years, and we are the only group to be endorsed by the Gallup organization for the integrity of our list of the Best Doctors in America. During the nomination process, we use a comprehensive process to survey, collect and analyze data that will help us determine the doctors who are most trusted and leaned upon to handle the most complicated cases in hundreds of different specialty areas. That process must take certain factors into consideration to avoid physician selections that are based solely upon a “popularity contest.” Much of a physician’s data is known by the individual’s practice partners, and we trust that the data known by the local medical community is an important determining factor when individuals are choosing who to nominate as a Best Doctor. If an individual is selected as a Best Doctor in America, it means he/she has been identified within the top four to five percent of the medical profession. At Best Doctors, we believe this is a meaningful recognition within the profession of medicine, and helps us collectively overcome the rates of incomplete or missed diagnoses that we see today. MTT: Does being a Best Doctor hold any weight with the Business to Business (B2B) community, including employers, brokers, health plans and insurance companies? LL: Absolutely, the B2B community is an integral part of the Best Doctors mission. For over 20 years, Best Doctors has been helping leading employers and health plans address many of the productivity and cost concerns that they have been struggling with, by working to ensure that employees or health plan members get the right diagnosis and treatment plan. Best Doctors also ensures that so much of the wasted spending we see today in healthcare is eliminated. Most importantly, we help members fight back against medical uncertainty and unnecessary suffering by quickly and efficiently working to get them the right diagnosis and treatment plan. Currently, over 30 million individuals worldwide have free and confidential access to Best Doctors services, and one of the core components is known as inter-consultation – a very in-depth medical review. Inter-consultation allows individuals who are facing a situation of medical uncertainty to reach out to Best Doctors and receive a comprehensive physician review and clinical summary based on the patient’s medical history. The process works. In 2013, of the tens of thousands of cases Best Doctors reviewed, a change in diagnosis was made in 34 percent of cases, and a change in treatment plan was recommended in 68 percent of cases. These are real lives being changed, thanks to this process. MTT: I am not sure that our audiences are aware of this. Please provide an example. LL: For example, an individual may be informed of the need for a new aortic valve, but is left questioning where to receive top-quality care, which doctor should perform the procedure and if the procedure is even necessary in the first place. Included in our comprehensive clinical summary is a 15-question form answered by a top-level expert. We have a physician service department connect the patient’s case to an expert who can best answer questions about clinical utility. Upon completion, we forward the results back to the patient, as well as to his or her treating team. We have found that through this process, roughly one-third of the time we alter the initial diagnosis, and nearly 70 percent of the time we make subset treatment recommendations. Many leading U.S. companies have partnered with Best Doctors to provide our services to all of their employees at no additional cost to the employee. Through this experience, we have also connected with many leading domestic medical tourism and travel programs that these aforementioned companies have set up for their work force. For the past 26 years, I have practiced general internal medicine in the Boston metropolitan area, and I am highly impressed by the impact our inter-consultation process has had on so many lives. MTT: Industry sources report that a fair amount of spine surgeries, joint replacements and cardiac care are unnecessary. Would you say that is accurate? LL: I credit a lot of over-utilization of procedures to regional variations and practice. Best Doctors prides itself on providing independent and objective medical assessments, which is why many leading companies have elected our company to be a part of their employee benefits program or domestic medical tourism program offerings. MTT: Does Best Doctors adhere to any value proposition with regard to pricing? LL: Absolutely. When Best Doctors is implemented as an employee benefit for a Fortune 500 company, we first receive a thorough understanding of each health plan partner associated with that company. This may include domestic medical travel opportunities and relationships that they have established with various transparency vendors. We have also found that clinical integration with transparency vendors is significant because the vendors are in a great position to inform consumers about the cost of proposed procedures and accessibility to Best Doctor services. MTT: Does Best Doctors recommend specific institutions or locations for patient surgeries? LL: If we deem a procedure necessary, we offer a Find Best Doctor Program, which provides individuals access to the expertise of doctors who are not only identified in the Best Doctors database, but also doctors who take that individual’s insurance, are open to accepting new patients and have reasonable availability for their next appointment. Best Doctors also partners with carriers that provide our solutions, and many carriers are increasingly moving into a world of value versus volume. MTT: Is there anything about Best Doctors that you would like to add to help our B2B audience readily understand your model? LL: Best Doctors has offices around the world, including offices in Massachusetts, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the U.K. I’ve had the fortune of visiting most of our offices globally, and I can tell you that individuals are very interested in being able to get access to the top minds in medicine to verify the accuracy of their diagnosis and make sure that they are on the appropriate treatment path. We also find that, in terms of changes in diagnosis and changes in treatment, we get very similar findings from our global population and domestic population. Recently, Best Doctors announced the acquisition of Rise Health, a leading population health management company. The acquisition provides Best Doctors with even greater data integration and advanced analytics capabilities to combine actionable data insights and medical excellence. For our valued members, this means a personalized care experience based on your own unique needs, with local access to global medical expertise to help you get it right. Together with Rise Health, Best Doctors can further enable customized, impactful interactions with caregivers. MTT: What would be your advice on the growing Ebola outbreak? LL: One of the most accurate and up-to-date sources of current information regarding the transmission of Ebola is on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website. The website is being updated daily as the CDC learns more about the transmissibility of Ebola and the best way individuals can protect themselves, and family members, from contracting the disease.